Taylor Swift Keeps Up Villain Streak by Breaking Adele’s Music Video Record

The new Taylor Swift era began just days ago, and it already feels like a lot, doesn’t it? She hasn’t said a peep or appeared at a live event yet, but already theories and analyses about this new musical sojourn are underway thanks to the singer’s recent single, the truly divisive “Look What You Made Me Do.” While there’s plenty to say about the song—its bald attempt at Kanye West shade, its “I’m Too Sexy” reference, that “she’s dead!” spoken-word bit at the end—Swift knows that a song alone was not nearly enough to please her fans. So she dropped a splashy music video for the single at the MTV Video Music Awards as well. Thanks to the endless whir of the hype machine and Swift’s megastar status, the video is already breaking records—including a massive one previously set by Adele’s smoky “Hello.”

Per Variety, “L.W.Y.M.M.D.” notched over 31 million views in less than 24 hours, making it the most viewed video in that period of time this year so far. The video has bested Adele’s sepia-toned “Hello,” directed by Cannes favorite Xavier Dolan in 2015, which garnered 27 million views in the same 24-hour time span. The “Despacito” remix, which tagged Justin Bieber onto the catchy Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee track, now falls down to third place, with 22 million views in 24 hours.

Swift has, in a way, shown just how critic-proof she has become. Early reviews and social chatter around the single were mild at best and negative at worst. This is what she spent months in hiding working on—a jittery pop number with a chanted chorus that barely sinks its claws into West, her career-long enemy turned frenemy turned enemy once more? Apparently!

But hey, it doesn’t matter what the critics say at this point—because Swift’s fans are gulping up her music after the singer’s long hiatus, no matter how it sounds. Variety notes that the song has already been streamed 23 million times on Spotify. On the first day of release, it was purchased 189,144 and accrued sales over the weekend, amounting to a three-day total of 245,900.

The video itself, directed by Joseph Kahn, will only spur even more sales. In the cheeky clip, Swift lays thick into the numerous jokes that have been made about her over the years—from everyone who called her a snake to the snark about her “squad” to that Snapchat feud with Kim Kardashian West. It starts with a zombified Swift rising from a grave, then delivers a montage of Swift in a variety of looks, from venomous snake queen, to leather-clad pop dominatrix. It ends with various versions of the singer arguing with one another and mocking her recent controversies. “There she goes, playing the victim again,” one says derisively.

Swift has been taking notes and keeping an eye on all your Twitter jokes. Prepare for more self-aware material in the Reputation era—and more record-breaking videos to come.